


sleep soft

by asymmetric



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, First Kiss, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 08:47:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3563456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asymmetric/pseuds/asymmetric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parenting is harder than Liam had thought it would be.</p><p>(in which he and Niall take care of a fake baby and things get knocked a little off balance)</p>
            </blockquote>





	sleep soft

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunshinexbomb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinexbomb/gifts).



> so!
> 
> this was written for a prompt about getting partnered up to take care of a fake baby (because i am always drawn to baby related prompts) and i am so sorry because it was supposed to be just fluff but it somehow turned into sappy angst.
> 
> i have no control over my life
> 
> also, this was not britpicked in any way and is thus probably disgustingly north american. apologies

“It's kind of ugly,” Niall said.

“It is not,” Liam said defensively.

Niall reached over and prodded the baby in the head with a finger. Its giant blue eyes blinked once, an alien shuttering of plastic over glass, before it returned to staring sightlessly up at Liam.

“Okay,” he relented. “It is a bit.”

“Remember—this baby is your responsibility now,” Ms. Kwon called out, standing serenely behind a table at the front of the classroom with fake babies piled up on it like rejected props of a horror movie. “For the next week you and your partner must take care of the doll as if it were a real child, taking it with you to your classes and sharing the work equally between the two of you. You will record your experiences as a parent in a daily journal that will be due when you hand the baby back in to me. This is an exercise to help you learn not only about parenting, but about teamwork and—Mr. Tomlinson, if you do not stop doing that to the doll this instant, I will have to take it away and give you a zero.”

Liam turned in his seat to see Louis, several rows back, cradling his baby with a carefully affronted look on his face.

“Miss, I have no idea what you're referring to,” he said, sounding completely sincere. “Trust me, Bubbles is in good hands.”

Beside him, Zayn rolled his eyes.

Niall bumped his shoulder into Liam's and leaned in to whisper, “ten pounds says they'll either break or lose the baby before the week is up.”

“You're on,” Liam said. “When it comes down to it, Louis loves kids. And Zayn's more responsible than that.”

“You think that now,” Niall said.

Liam redirected his attention to the plastic doll in his hands, tracing a finger down the bridge of its cold nose.

“Do you think it looks a bit like you?” he asked. The baby didn't just have Niall's blue eyes, but had also a painted on curl of blond right at the crown of its head. Liam had noticed that first thing—it had been what made him choose this one when they'd gotten up to the table. If he squinted, making the obviously fake edges of the baby blur into something softer, it looked almost cute.

“No!” Niall said, affronted. He'd never really left Liam's space after he'd first dipped into it, but he managed to twist himself even closer somehow, planting a hand on Liam's chair next to his thigh so he could bend down towards the baby. Ms. Kwon was saying something in the distance about leaving to get some work sheets, and Liam thought he should probably be listening, but Niall's hair was in his face and he smelled kind of like oranges. Oranges and spiciness. Liam had to resist the urge to faceplant into the back of Niall's head so he could breathe it in better.

“This thing does not look like me,” Niall was saying. His shoulder was jabbing into Liam's chest, all awkward bone. “I do not look that creepy.”

“I didn't say you looked creepy,” Liam said.

“You have first shift taking care of it for sure just for that,” Niall mumbled, clearly not listening. There was a trail of fine hair going down the nape of his neck and disappearing into the collar of his shirt, and Liam's eyes got stuck there.

“You're not creepy looking,” he said stupidly.

Niall turned, shoulder scraping a long line of pressure against Liam's collarbone, and his face was suddenly absurdly close, filling up Liam's entire field of vision. Liam stopped breathing a little bit. Niall had a scattering of red zits forming above one of his eyebrows. His eyes were very, very blue, like a shock of cartoon electricity.

“'Course I'm not,” Niall said quietly. His gaze flicked around Liam's face, and Liam bit down on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from blurting out anything that might make Niall move away.

“Oi!” Something pointy struck the side of Liam's cheek, and he recoiled away from Niall, turning back to see Louis armed with a handful of pens. Zayn was holding their baby now, looking very amused.

“You two've already got a kid!” Louis called. “And you're trying to make another one right away, blimey, you horny bastards!”

“What?” Liam said. “We're both boys, that doesn't even—” He trailed off, trying not to picture what two boys trying to “make a baby” would look like. He didn't even really know how gay people had sex, and it made his stomach feel hot and squirmy and nauseous just thinking about it.

Niall picked up the pen Louis had thrown and chucked it back at him. Louis ducked, cackling, and Zayn met Liam's eyes, raising his eyebrows and dipping his head towards Niall in a way that was probably supposed to convey something important. Liam made a “what?” sort of face at him in response, and Zayn shrugged.

“Idiots,” Niall muttered, putting his back to them. “Lucky the teacher wasn't in the room.” He smiled at Liam, sudden and blazing, and punched him on the shoulder. “Glad I got put with you, Payno, and not them! You're probably loads better at this baby business. Me and you will work together and get through this easy.”

Liam grinned back at him, a warm glow spreading through his chest.

“Yeah,” he said. “We've got this. It'll be good.”

The baby started screaming.

****

“What?” Harry screeched. “You guys get to take care of babies in your Health class?”

“Fake babies,” Liam said. His and Niall's was sitting on his lap. Zayn had stuck his and Louis' in his backpack, which definitely was not the point of the project.

“Fake babies that sound really real when they scream,” Louis put in. “It's not a good thing, Haz. I keep having war flashbacks to when the girls were tiny.” Contrary to his words, he looked kind of pleased at the thought.

Harry groaned and thunked his head down on the lunch table, rattling all of their trays.

“Why do I have to wait 'till next semester?” he whined. “This is not fair.”

“You can always take ours,” Niall said. “Do the project for us. We don't mind.”

“Yes, we do!” Liam exclaimed. It had taken them ten minutes of frantically reading the instruction manual and then trying every method of getting the baby to shut up that was listed before it finally did. Liam and Niall had walked around the classroom rocking it for what felt like ages with Louis yelling really unhelpful things (even though he was the one of them all most likely to actually know what to do), so Liam felt a certain degree of responsibility for it now. “It's our project. It's our baby.”

“Oh?” Louis said, elbowing Zayn and giving him stupid, significant looks. “Is it? Is it your baby? You and Nialler's love child?”

“Shut up, Louis,” Niall hissed. When Liam looked over at him, he didn't look amused, like he usually did when Louis said something dumb. He was picking at his french fries and glaring at them like they'd done something to offend him. The baby screaming earlier must have put him in a bad mood.

“Can I see it?” Harry asked, lifting his head. He had a piece of lettuce stuck in his hair.

“Sure,” Liam said, carefully passing the baby over the table. “It's in its, like, sleeping mode right now, so please don't wake it.”

Harry took the baby, his face going soft and dopey, and cradled it gently in his arms.

“Aw, it looks like Niall!” he cooed.

Niall put his face in his hands and let out a slow, long-suffering moan.

“There's a bit of our Payno in there too, I reckon,” Louis said, leaning over the table with his hand outstretched to poke at the baby's face. Liam caught his hands in time—he was not letting anyone accidentally wake up this baby again. “Look at the nose.”

“You're right, Lou!” Harry said, utterly enchanted. He looked from Liam to Niall, grinning broadly. “This kid clearly belongs to both of you.”

“Thanks,” Liam said, feeling strangely proud. After all, he had been the one to pick the doll.

“Don't encourage them, Liam,” Niall said. “They're just being dicks.”

“How is it being a dick to congratulate you and Liam on your mutant gay plastic baby?” Louis asked. “Clearly science has come a long way—”

Niall lunged across the table at Louis, and the two of them fell to the ground, rolling over and over. Niall seemed to be trying to shove his hand over Louis' mouth, or maybe into it, but it didn't deter Louis much from yelling out garbled things about “injustice” and “anger management”.

“Whoops,” Zayn said lazily, watching them wrestle. Liam made grabby hands at Harry and got his baby back safely in his arms. If they were going to get kicked out of the cafeteria he wanted to be the one carrying it.

“Liam,” Harry said, though he was looking at Niall and Louis, and clearly pitching his voice loud for their benefit, “do you think your child's father should really be tussling with another lad on the floor?”

“It's not really appropriate behaviour, yeah,” Zayn said.

Louis pushed Niall off and yelled, “you have to be a good parent!”

“It's not a gay baby if neither of us are gay,” Liam said. Harry started making weird choking noises. Liam ignored him. “And if me and Niall are parents, what does that make you and Zayn?”

“Awesome babysitters,” Zayn said, and Louis sat up to high five him. Niall spread out on his back on the ground, staring up at the ceiling as if he had given up on life.

“You okay, Niall?” Liam said.

“He's fine,” Louis said, patting Niall on the stomach. Niall flipped him off.

Liam got up, fake baby cradled safely in his arms, and walked over to crouch next to Niall's head. Niall’s cheeks had gone blotchy pink from wrestling with Louis, and the collar of his shirt was yanked down so Liam could see a smear of mustard tagged along his throat.

“I'm fine,” Niall said, quiet now that Liam was right by him.

“Good,” Liam said. “Don't want the baby to get worried about his Da.”

Their whole table burst into laughter and Liam grinned, pleased with contributing successfully to a running joke. It went a bit sideways on his face when he realized that Niall was the only one not laughing, instead just staring up at Liam with a strange, caved in sort of look on his face.

It was only there for a second before Niall was pushing himself up and holding his arms out for Liam to pass him the baby, looking almost bored.

“I'll take care of it during our classes today, and you can take it home,” he said once he had a hold of it. “That work for you?”

Liam frowned. Earlier Niall had said he would come over to Liam's after school and they could both take care of the baby until Niall had to walk home for supper. Apparently the plan had changed, and Liam had no idea what he had done to make that happen.

“Um, yeah, I guess,” he said.

The bell rang then, as if to punctuate his statement, and Niall gave him a soft smile, a dim, mood-lighting version of his usual mega-watt grin.

“See you later,” he said, and he slung the baby up onto his shoulder and was off.

Liam stayed crouched where he was on the floor, feeling strangely bereft without the weight of Niall's eyes on him or the feel of the doll in his arms. There was scuffling at the table behind him, and then a pair of shoes appeared where Niall had lay.

“If Niall asked you for a favour, would you do it? No matter what?”

Liam looked up to see Zayn standing over him, his face as smooth as a lake on a windless day.

“Yes,” Liam said. Sometimes Zayn got in these mysterious moods, and it was always best to humour him through them.

“If Niall hadn't been selected as your partner for this project, would you have been sad?” Zayn asked.

“Yes,” Liam said.

“If Niall was the last person on earth, would you have sex with him?”

“Yes,” Liam said.

A smile cracked Zayn's blank facade and a burst of laughter that could only be Louis' rang out loud and annoying from somewhere behind Liam. Liam blinked and processed what he just said.

“I mean—I wouldn't, like—only if there were no girls left. Like, last people on earth!”

He shot to his feet, and Louis shoved his backpack into his arms. People were swirling all around them, pushing past to head to their classes, and Liam felt a bit like a piece of fruit in a blender, getting chopped up and turned into a confusing mush.

“If Niall was the last person on earth with you, you would wanna...kiss him and stuff too!” he said defensively. They were always doing this, always making fun of him just because the one time he'd let them get him drunk he'd talked about Niall's eyes and mouth and shoulders for about forty minutes. Everyone liked Niall a little bit more than everybody else though. It was perfectly normal.

“Nah,” Louis said. “I would just jerk off alone. Because I'm not secretly in love with him.”

Liam gaped. “I'm—I'm not gay though!”

He was 100% sure of that. Maybe only 98% sure when Niall was around, but that was Niall.

Harry patted him on the shoulder, looking placidly concerned.

“You didn't object to the “in love” bit, Leemo,” he pointed out. “Anyway, me and Louis have English on the other side of the school, so we've gotta be going.”

Louis nodded sagely and the two of them gathered their things and scurried off, Louis almost falling over a table because he was trying to keep inexplicably menacing eye contact with Liam all the way out of the cafeteria. Liam shook his head in despair and turned away from them to see Zayn watching him.

“What?” he said. “We're gonna be late for Tech.”

“Okay,” Zayn said. “But if you ever wanted to talk about anything...for real...you know, tell us anything, we wouldn't make fun of you then. You know that, right?”

He looked serious, earnest, and Liam let himself answer honestly.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “But I don't have anything I wanna talk about. Really.”

****

Liam met Niall on his first day of grade ten, a week after his family had moved to their new town. He hadn't exactly had very many friends at his old school, and tripping down the stairs and landing directly onto another boy hadn't seemed like the best way to make a good impression, but Niall had just smiled and said it was fine and dragged Liam over to meet all of his friends. It had been over a year since, and although Liam was finally settling into the comfortable knowledge that their teasing was in good fun and that they all genuinely liked him, it was still a bit of a shock sometimes if he really thought about it. He used to get beat up at his old school for “looking gay”, and now he had a group of boys who would stand by him no matter what. Being friends with Zayn and Louis and Harry was one of the best things that had ever happened to him. And, of course, Niall, but Niall had always been something slightly separate in his mind. He was the sun they revolved around. He was the heart of their group. He was always smiling this glowy smile and he went all melty soft against Liam's side when Liam put an arm around him and he and Liam sometimes did little synchronized dances and—and just having his attention felt like being showered in warmth. Or gold. Or presents. Liam had yet to think of a proper metaphor that fit exactly how it made him feel when Niall looked at him, but he knew that feeling was good.

Niall lived a ten minute's walk away from Liam's house, and they were always going over to visit each other, usually Niall coming to Liam's 'cause he said their couches were comfier. Liam's mum had started to automatically expect Niall to be there when Liam got home from school, and when he wasn't it was, “oh, is Niall busy tonight, love? Got family plans? Feeling ill?” His whole family was always joking that Niall was basically another son, since they barely went three days without seeing him.

Until this week at least.

Liam had thought it would be just that first day that Niall abandoned him with the baby after school, but instead it seemed to become a pattern. Liam was the one dealing with the baby waking up and screaming every four hours during the night, and then “feeding” it in the morning (which involved tapping the plastic bottle it came with against its mouth until the light on the bottle turned green), and then he'd bring the baby to school and Niall would whisk it away from him for the rest of the day, only to give it back after last period. The only time they did any of the joint parenting that Liam had sort of been looking forward to was lunchtime and Health class, and although Niall seemed almost normal then—laughing and nudging up beside Liam like everything was the same—Liam still felt like something was wrong.

“This isn't what parenting is supposed to be like,” Liam grumbled, leaning his forehead against his locker.

“Something up with you and Niall?” Zayn asked, appearing at Liam's shoulder. Their class had been cancelled due to the teacher having some sort of “dental emergency”, so the two of them had a surprise spare period. It should have been a chance to relax and enjoy free time without having to take care of the baby doll, but Liam couldn't help feeling restless, unsettled and unable to think about anything other than whatever was making Niall pull away. He and Niall had never really fought before, and he wasn't even sure if this constituted a fight.

“I don't know,” said Liam. “He's being—he's being weird. He hasn't been over in four days. I thought we would be seeing more of each other if we're raising a fake baby together, not seeing less.”

“Me and Louis aren't spending every second together just for this project,” Zayn pointed out. “I mean, we at least alternate nights with the baby so we don't have to deal with that all the time, but you and Niall aren't being weird by any standard other than your own.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Liam asked.

In his peripheral vision he could see Zayn shrugging. “Just that your normal with Niall is the odd thing, not what's happening right now.”

Liam stared down the front of his locker, frustration bubbling up inside him. Just above the lock was a few shallow scratches—leftover marks from when Niall had tried to scrape their initials there at the start of the year, and looking at it now just made him feel hollow. No one else seemed to get it.

“I don't want to be awesome babysitters like you and Louis though,” he said. “I don't care if me and Niall are weird. I want us to get back to normal, I want—I want us to be parents and stuff.”

He was braced for Zayn to try and twist his words somehow, make it all out like he was—in love with Niall or something, but when he looked up, Zayn was just looking steadily at him.

“Go and tell him that then.”

****

Niall had a regular spare period at this time, and he always spent it in the music room with what Louis called his “Summer Crew”, a group of boys in the grade below them who went to the same three week long summer camp that Niall had been going to since he was little. They were all cool enough, and it was always a good time when they came and hung out with Liam and the rest of them, but for the most part they kept to their own little insular group. Liam still wasn't sure how they had gotten access to the music room whenever they wanted it, but he didn't want to question it in case it turned out one of them had stolen a key or something.

When Liam eased the door to the music room open and poked his head in, he could only see Luke and Ashton at first, their blond heads dipped together over a guitar in Luke's lap. When he actually stepped into the room he spotted Niall in the far corner, laughing over Calum and Michael miming something vaguely pornographic with some flutes. Liam hovered by the door for a moment, watching Niall's hands move and his back bend under the force of his laughter. He was nervous, suddenly, in a way he wasn't usually around Niall.

Michael saw Liam first, and pointed his flute dramatically at him.

“Liam!” he called out. “Niall, it's your husband!”

“Ehhhhh!” Calum shouted, spreading his arms wide. Niall turned around, a laugh still lighting up his face, and Liam smiled at him, giving a little finger wave.

“What are you doing here?” Niall said, bouncing over to him. “Don't you and Zayn have class?”

He didn't look like someone who was avoiding Liam. He looked happy to see him, and Liam felt a sickly rush of stupidity in his throat—what if he was reading everything all wrong and nothing between them had changed?

“The teacher is sick or something, so we got a last minute spare,” Liam explained. “I came to see you.” He looked around the room, eyes skipping over the music stands and backpacks and the four boys now all crowded together and talking in low voices. “Where is the baby?”

“Oh,” Niall said, and something about his entire demeanor seemed to subtly change, tensing up. “We put it in the recording booth.”

“What?” Liam said. “Why?”

“It kept screaming, and it was annoying.”

Liam gaped at Niall. A muscle in Niall's jaw was ticking, like he was clenching and unclenching it.

“And you just left it there to cry?” Liam asked. “You're—we're supposed to be treating them like real babies!”

Niall shrugged again, looking like he couldn't care less, and Liam felt the closest to angry that he'd ever been able to get to in Niall's presence before. Sometimes Niall locked himself down when he felt uncomfortable, going blank and stiff like a robot, but it wasn't something he'd ever really done when talking just to Liam before. It felt worse to be faced with it than Liam could have imagined—he felt like he'd been kicked out in the snow and had the door slammed in his face.

“Is something wrong?” Liam asked. He stepped closer, trying to keep it between the two of them, all too aware of the other boys in the room. “Niall, you've been...weird lately. Did I—did I do something?”

Niall flashed a cardboard smile, obviously and piercingly false, and it hit Liam in the chest like a punch.

“No,” Niall said. “You're fine, idiot! I just...it's just a stupid project. There's no sensor on the baby to show if we leave it crying instead of taking care of it. Only the feeding of it is monitored, and I fed it like half an hour ago. All I have to do is make up shit in my journal thing, and we're fine. Project is fine.”

“But—” Liam stared at Niall, lost and utterly unsure of how to get back home. “We're supposed to be parents.”

Niall went completely still, like he'd been unplugged. Out of the corner of his eye, Liam could see Luke and Calum looking over in their direction.

“Me and you, remember?” Liam said. “We said at the start that we got this, that we'd do this together.”

“I've got stuff to do,” Niall blurted out. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, blindly pointing at the other boys, and started backing up, away from Liam. “We can talk about this later.”

“But, Niall—” Liam took a step forward, following him automatically, but suddenly Ashton was stepping in front of Niall, arms folded over his chest.

“Leave it, Liam,” he said quietly. “He'll talk to you later.”

Michael was slinging his arm around Niall's shoulder, and Luke was bending in close to whisper something to him. Calum looked ready to step up next to Ashton if need be, and the idea that all of them, for some reason, thought Niall needed to be protected from Liam made him feel like the world was tilting under his feet and he was going to fall right off into space.

“Fine,” Liam said, swallowing hard against the growing tightness of his throat. “But if I'm leaving now, I'm taking the baby with me. “

****

There was a lot of stuff to do to take care of a baby. At home Liam didn't have a soundproof recording booth that he could stick the doll in if it was bothering him, like Niall apparently could. No, he had to go through the pointless routine of feeding and burping and changing and just holding the baby while Ruth yelled at him to get it to shut up. And then he had to write it all down in his stupid project journal. If Niall and him were hanging out together and dealing with it as partners, the way they were supposed to be doing, he knew this would be so much better—maybe even fun. But going through it alone made the falseness of the doll stand out even more, made his every action feel ten times as stupid and futile as it would have otherwise. The doll's crying didn't even come from its mouth, and it was increasingly disturbing. Its face was molded in one plastic position and the disembodied screams came from some sort of speaker in its stomach, its mouth remaining firmly shut, its eyes always staring. Liam didn't think it looked very much like him and Niall anymore, and it certainly didn't look cute.

After an awkward supper of his parents trying to casually bring up Liam's bad mood and Niall's extended absence without actually bringing either of them up, Liam managed to get the baby to go to “sleep” and went on the computer for a few minutes to check his facebook and email before bed. Usually Niall sent him dumb facebook messages with links to funny fail videos or vines with puppies in them every other day or so, but there was nothing from him. There was, however, a message from Louis, and he clicked on it with little hope for good news.

“hey payno, heard from zayn that ur having some trouble figurin out how to be parents with nialler. harry and i found somethin for u that might help show u what a healthy couple is like ;)”

There was a video link attached, and when Liam followed it, it lead to a porn site, flashing gifs of dicks and hands and breasts all along the side of the screen in a terrifying and gross sort of tetris. The preview picture for the video itself was just a blond boy sprawled back on his elbows on a bed, clearly naked, legs spread and crotch covered only by the square box of the play button. Liam stared blankly at the computer screen, his head as empty as a balloon. Abruptly, he really missed Niall, so much so that he thought he might cry. The boy in the picture looked a lot like him.

Liam clicked play.

Twenty minutes later he had a much better idea of how gay people had sex and he was dry-mouthed and hard in his pants. Nothing else had become clearer to him and he wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to jerk off or throw up. The boy in the video got all flushed when roughed around a bit just like Niall did, except it had gone down his chest all the way to his pink cock, and Liam kept picturing and replaying it in his head.

“i hate u” he typed out in response to Louis. He closed his laptop and changed into his pyjama pants, refusing to touch his own stupid, confused dick. He lay in bed, shaky and panicking, until he finally was able to fall asleep.

He dreamed that he was on a stage, bright columns of light swirling around him and flashing hot across his face. Niall was there, only a couple steps away, almost glowing against the dark backdrop of the world beyond the stage. Music was swelling all around them, and it only made sense for Liam to step forward and wrap his arms around Niall. Niall barked out a laugh, his hands clutching at Liam's arm around his waist, and then Liam was picking him up, spinning them around and around and around. The lights flashed shutter-like in front of his eyes and Niall let go of his arm, spreading his own out wide like he trusted Liam completely to hold him up. He was laughing, wild and happy, and he was warm and solid against Liam's chest, and Liam never wanted to put him down again, never wanted this to end.

He woke up to the baby crying.

The sound started small and then swelled to fill the room, going on and on and on, a mechanical loop that became more inhuman each time it started up again. Liam stared up at the ceiling, his eyes slowly adjusting until he could make out the weird footprint shaped water stain right above him. He and Niall always used to joke that it was left by a visiting alien.

Liam knew he had to get up and soothe the baby before it woke up his whole family, but he was done. He was done with getting no sleep and he was done with Niall being weird around him and he was done with doing this alone.

“Fuck it,” he whispered. He could barely hear himself over the baby. “Fuck it.”

****

It was a cloudless night, and there was a full moon hanging heavy and huge in the sky, washing the sidewalk with pale dishwater light. Liam tucked the baby closer to his chest and hitched his backpack up on his shoulders, stomping past the rows of identical houses, alien and intimidating in the moonlight. He had no idea what time it was, and if it was cold he couldn't feel it, even though he was still in his pyjama pants and all he'd done was throw on a coat over his bare chest. He was following the tall, confident shape of his shadow stretching ahead of him. He was going to Niall's.

Niall's mailbox had a dent in it from Harry accidentally whacking it with a hockey stick last year, and even in this new night landscape Liam could recognize it at a distance. He turned into the driveway and hesitated for a second, looking at the dark windows. For a split second he thought of turning back, but then he shook himself and pushed forward, climbing easily over the gate to the backyard. Niall's room was on the first floor, and his parents' on the second—he could do this fine without disturbing anyone he wasn't trying to.

Liam shifted the baby to his left arm and crept up to Niall's window. A fat strip of moonlight had fallen through the glass and spread itself across Niall's floor and up the foot of his bed, lighting up just one pale foot kicked out on top of the covers. Liam knocked purposefully on the window.

He had to give it a couple tries before the foot on the bed twitched and slowly slid up the mattress out of the pool of light. It was another minute or so before Niall stumbled up to the window, rubbing at his eyes. He was shirtless, his pyjama pants hanging loose around his hips, and Liam tried desperately not to think of the stupid thing he'd watched before bed.

He smiled weakly at Niall through the glass as Niall fumbled with the catch of the window, and then Niall was pushing it open and saying, “Liam? It's the middle of the night.”

His voice was sleep soft and molasses slow, and part of Liam couldn't help but want to tuck him back into bed and maybe pet his hair a little as he fell asleep. The other part of Liam, the part that had pushed him to come here in the first place, wanted to shake him and force him to be awake and here with Liam.

“I know,” he said. “I'm coming in.”

Niall blinked at him and shuffled backwards to give him space to climb through the window. Liam bent down and took his shoes off as soon as he was inside, dropping his backpack on the floor next to Niall's bed. When he turned to close the window, Niall was no longer staring at him, but at the baby in his arms.

“You brought that thing?” he said.

“It's not a thing,” Liam said. “It's our project, and yes, I brought it, because it was driving me mad, and I'm sick of doing this alone.”

“You're not doing it alone,” Niall said, crossing his arms. In the faint light his biceps had way more definition than usual, bunched up all sweet and tense, and Liam tried not to stare. “I've been taking it during the day, we've been spending equal amounts of time with it.”

“No, we haven't!” Liam hissed. “I have to wake up during the night when it wakes up and deal with it then instead of getting any sleep, and you—you just ignore it in the day if it cries! I can't do that at night when it's going to wake up my whole house!”

Niall just stared at him, doing his robot face again. Liam was sick of it.

“So I'm here,” he said. “And I'm staying over, and we're taking care of it together, like we should've been doing all week.”

Liam held the baby stiffly out to Niall, who took it after a pause, and then he shrugged his way out of his jacket, dumping it on the floor next to his backpack. He hadn't been cold before, but goosebumps rose on his arms almost as soon as his coat was off, and he had to resist the urge to cover up his bare chest—stupid, since he and Niall had been shirtless around each other countless times before. It felt kind of different now, standing in his room in the middle of the night with Niall holding a baby that looked a little like both of them.

“Okay,” Niall said belatedly. His eyes were fixed somewhere south of Liam's chin, and Liam had to turn away and flop down face first on Niall's bed, embarrassment rising up in him. He kind of wanted to smother himself with Niall's pillows.

After a moment, Niall stretched out carefully beside him. Liam turned his head and opened one eye to see that he had the baby propped up on his chest, and was looking up emotionlessly at it.

“Does your mum know you're here?” Niall said.

“I left a note.”

“Okay.”

Silence fell between them again. Liam opened his mouth and closed it several times, tracing his gaze over the silver lines of Niall's profile. He'd come here to talk, but maybe he could just let himself sleep instead. Maybe all that was needed to fix this was proximity. Maybe they'd wake up tomorrow curled together and Niall would smile at Liam and tell him everything was alright.

But maybe not.

“It feels like things are fucked up,” he said quietly. “Ashton and them, they were—they were acting like I'd done something really awful to you.”

“You know they're together, right?” Niall said suddenly. “The four of them. They're a thing.”

“What, like...romantically?” Liam asked.

Niall nodded.

“Oh,” said Liam. He didn't know what he was supposed to say to that, or why Niall had brought that up. He wanted to ask how something like that was supposed to work—because four people? Really?—but he was positive that bringing up any confusion would be bad right now. “That's...cool.”

“Is it?” Niall said. “You get weird about stuff like that sometimes.”

“I do not!” Liam said, pushing himself up on his elbows so he could look at Niall better. “What, they don't think I'm gonna be shitty to them about it or something, do they? It's none of my business.”

“Would it be your business if it was me, though?”

Liam felt like he'd been kicked in the chest, and he stared at Niall. Nothing about his face had shifted. There was no twitch of nervousness to show that this was a serious question or that he cared about Liam's reaction, and somehow the blank white of his face made Liam feel even more rocked off balance.

“Are you—are you with them, like—”

“No,” Niall said. “They're their own thing. I don't want in on that.”

“But you—you want—you like—”

“Boys,” Niall said. The corner of his mouth twisted downwards for a second before smoothing out. “Yeah.”

Liam closed his eyes and took a moment to breathe, letting this new information spread through him. When he opened them Niall was still there, looking the same as he ever did.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Liam whispered.

Niall still wouldn't look at him, staring determinedly at the silent baby doll. He reached his hand up and touched its cheek, soft and careful.

“It does look like me,” he said, ignoring Liam's question. “And Louis was right; it has your nose too. It looks like us. And that's really fucking creepy.”

“Sorry,” Liam said.

Niall sat up abruptly, leaning over the side of the bed to place the baby on the ground. Liam watched his back curve, the knobs of his spine standing out like steps in his pale skin, and imagined pressing a finger to each groove.

When Niall was satisfied with the baby's placement, he lay back down, hands curled together on his stomach.

“You were the one who picked it. And you kept going on about being parents and stuff,” he said. “I—I like being your friend. I'm good with friends. It's just that sometimes—” He pulled his hands up to press against his eyes, digging in. The mask was slipping, peeling off his face. “—sometimes I look at you and—it's just this project messing with me.”

They lay next to each other in silence. Liam's lungs felt like they were made of cards—if he breathed too sharply, they would collapse. He watched Niall's chest rise and fall, quick and shallow, ribs pressing against skin made wax thin in the dim light. Liam could see the veins in his arms and he had the crazy thought that he wanted to trace each one, learn all of Niall that he didn't know now. They were so close that Liam could feel the glow of heat coming off of him, and the hair was standing up on his own arms as if reaching for Niall.

“Niall,” Liam whispered. All the words coming to mind felt thick and clumsy, and he had no idea what he was doing. “You're my best friend.”

Niall's stomach sucked in sharply, and he let out a tiny, gasping sort of laugh, his hands pressing harder against his eyes. Liam's body swayed—held up stiff and straining on his elbows—and shifted, closing the inches between them. He had a peculiar feeling that he had to do this quietly, had to be slow and careful, or Niall would move, would jump up, run away, break the silence somehow, break Liam. His bare hip bumped into Niall's. His hand came down to sink an indent into the pillow next to Niall's head, wrist flush against the side of his neck. Liam was braced, half over him, and staring down. Niall was bare, he thought, Niall was naked to his waist, and he had to be cold. Liam wasn't, Liam felt like he was on fire, but Niall—Niall needed someone to cover him.

“Niall?” he said. His arm was shaking, Niall's hair brushing against it whisper soft.

“Get off me,” Niall said, choked. Liam could feel his breath on his cheek, his chin, his mouth. He was sinking down closer to him with every second—he'd thought he was strong enough to hold himself up, but he wasn't. He wasn't.

“Niall,” he said, because he couldn't seem to think of anything else.

“I like you,” Niall breathed. He arched up as he spoke, and his open mouth nudged Liam's, almost closing around his bottom lip, dragging only for an instant before he was gone. “I like you so much, I—”

Liam closed his eyes and fell that last little bit. Niall's mouth gave sweetly under his, the words smashed between them, and for a split second it was just one shuddering, uncertain press forward before Niall came to life. He surged up, almost knocking Liam off of him, and kissed back, so frantically that it was all Liam could do to keep up, to fall into it wholeheartedly, push his tongue in to stroke slick and electric over Niall's.

One of Niall's hands spread out firm against Liam's back, and the extra contact felt like brand, a wave of heat flushing through him. He shook from head to toe, lips skidding wet over Niall's, and when he pulled away to breathe his exhale came out as a stupid sounding sigh. He bent back down to kiss Niall again, already punch-drunk with the feel of it, but suddenly Niall was drawing back.

“Liam?”

When Liam opened his eyes the world was a dazzling kaleidoscope of bright spots against blackness, fading and fizzling out around the shape of Niall's face. Niall's mouth was shiny with spit and his eyes were bright, and he was looking at Liam in the nervous way he did sometimes when he told a joke and was waiting for Liam's reaction—waiting to be given permission to laugh. To be happy.

“Sorry,” Liam said automatically, and knew it was the wrong thing to say when Niall's face began to fall. “Not—not for that. Not for—no.”

“If you didn't mean that, Liam, I swear—” Niall started.

“I meant it!” Liam said quickly. “I mean—I'm not really supposed to, 'cause I'm not—I'm not like you, I—”

I'm not what they used to call me, he wanted to say. I'm not gay. But Niall was leaning up and kissing him again, and Liam couldn't keep up his train of thought with that happening. He felt stretched wide open, flayed raw and straining for Niall.

“Fuck if you're supposed to,” Niall said quietly. “You can want me. You're allowed.”

Liam licked his lips. “You giving me permission?”

Niall grinned, wide and easy, just like he'd always done, because even if he was shirtless and warm and kissed, he was still the Niall Liam knew.

“Yeah,” he said. “God—Liam, you have no idea.”

Liam became aware that he was shaking, adrenaline running overtime throughout his body. He wanted to ask Niall what he meant, but all he could do was smile back. Inexplicably, he felt like he might cry.

The baby beat him to it.

For a moment after it started wailing, they just stared at each other. Then Niall was cracking up, pushing back into the pillows with his shoulders scrunching up to his ears, and Liam practically dove off the bed to pick up the doll. He stuffed it under the blankets, muffling the sound somewhat, and Niall tipped over into a fresh wave of laughter.

“Shhh!” Liam hissed. “Your parents are going to wake up!”

“Then we'd better take of it before that happens,” Niall said, giggling. “It's our kid after all.”

It was the middle of the night and Liam was crouched over his best friend, one knee in between Niall's spread legs (he had no idea when that had happened). Niall's pyjama pants had slipped down to flash the pale cut of his hip, and he was sprawled back against the bed, looking up at Liam like he'd hung the moon. There was a screaming plastic doll stuck underneath a clump of comforter on Liam's left side.

I've never been happier, Liam realized.

“Yeah,” he said. “It is, isn't it?”

****

They got a solid B- on their project, and Harry made them a card that said “Best Parents Ever!” on it. Niall laughed himself sick over it.

Liam held his hand under the lunch table the whole time.

**Author's Note:**

> louis and zayn got an A
> 
> also, im on tumblr at [asymmetricboys](http://asymmetricboys.tumblr.com), (though it's...a 5sos blog) and if you wanna share this there, here is the [tumblr post!](http://asymmetricboys.tumblr.com/post/113893181338/sleep-soft-niall-liam-7-574-words-rparenting-is)


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